Baltimore Center Stage: Holes

 "Holes" is a play adapted by the author from a young adult novel.  The story is as fantastical as it is allegorical and traces the experiences of one very unlucky, possibly even curse, teenager in a parallel telling of his great great grandfather's tale and who the "curse" got placed in the first place.  Bottom line: Don't steal a pig from a Gypsy.

The adaptation is ingeniously done and made successful in conjunction with one of the most beautiful sets I've ever seen.  An arid desert full of holes one moment to a lake side community made abundant by waves of flowing water.  Add in a lighting design that perfectly connects to and transforms the sets as needed...it was magical.  Kudos to Scenic Designer Sydney Lynne who was brought in from Chicago to craft this inspiring set, and Jesse Belsky for the accompanying Lighting Design.  I've seen Jesse's work before, but always in standard, unimaginative productions where success is determined by the way you DON'T notice the lights.

The actors were a wonderful mix that in some ways mirrored the audience at today's matinee.  Clearly the word is out, because there wasn't an empty seat in the place, and this on top of the fact that it was also the annual Mount Washington Flower Sale just one block behind the theatre!  Thus the traffic and parking were a thing to be avoided--it also explains why I was able to get such a good seat so late in time...  The audience was split 50-50 between folks my age and up and young parents with children (ages 7 to 12, upper elementary).  The gentleman who sat next to me referred to me as "young man" and regaled me with stories of shows he'd seen as a young man in the theaters than no longer even exist in Charm City.  Like the time after one performance he ran into the Smothers Brothers at the bar at a nearby hotel and they spent the evening drinking and enjoying one another's company.

The parallel with the cast was a divide between established, seasoned actors, and those young men and women still in high school dreaming of their way into the business.  Among the older set were several familiar and dependable staples in the DMV actors' scene: Marcus Kyd, Emily Kester, Jonathan Del Palmer, and Susan Rome.  I've followed all of them over many productions and none more passionately than Susan who can do it all and with such gusto!  From a supporting role in "Brighton Beach Memoir" to a solo show on the life of avant garde sculptor Louise Nevelson, and most recently in a cast written, experimental production on the theme of caring at Mosaic Theatre in the District.  In truth, I first noticed her in a recurring role as assistant district attorney over a couple of seasons of "The Wire".  Here again, she chameleon-ed herself through a series of roles with the comedic timing of a truly gifted professional.

Seven roles went to the young folk as inmates in this nightmarish and farcical juvenile rehabilitation camp called "Green Lake" where there is no lake and nothing is green.  Three are students at the Baltimore School for the Arts, and another is a senior in a different Baltimore High Schools acting program.  It is so exciting to see such talent on stage in its nascent moments.  The main role is that of Stanley Yelnats IV portrayed by Zachary Corey; the aforementioned senior in the Acting Magnet Program at G. W. Carver Center for the Arts and Technology.  No matter how good everyone else is in this play--the production lives or dies on the shoulders of this young man for whom this was his professional acting debut.  I can't imagine the pressure, but I didn't have to, because he was magnificent.  He took on the role with such a natural ease that never fell into pitfalls that can plague inexperienced actors like relying on some cliche or gimmick to define a character's disposition.  Instead, he just was Stanley to the point that near the end when exhausted by his quest he collapses in despair in the desert and cries, I completely forgot that he was an actor playing a role, and instead, wanted to weep with him in empathy with his situation.   Additional shout outs go to Kimberly Dodson as Madame Zeroni and Jude Sincere as Zero.

"Holes" at Baltimore Center Stage is a triumph of story telling and a joy start to finish.

POST SCRIPT:  Prior to the beginning the company often sends out a member of the Board or behind the scenes administrator to welcome the audience and make a pitch for contributions.  The young man who got the nod today began by describing Baltimore Center Stage as "Maryland's Official Theatre Company".  I thought, "What the fuck?  By whose standards?"  Then I realized that it was certainly the result of some promise of state money to underwrite the company, and like other such agreements (The Maryland Zoo, for example) probably exacted an expectation of free performances for Public School groups to performances like this one.  I know they also have an ongoing program that teaches acting at some of the state's juvenile jails--something I think is 100% a good thing.  

Introduced to his Unit D crew members at "Camp Green Lake".

Madame Zeroni (Kimberly Dodson)

Unit D Crew: Top L-R: Stanley (Zachary Corey), X-Ray (Ephraim Neheniah), Zig Zag (Hassan Aziz) Bottom L-R: (Armpit (Joshua Reginald Allen), and Magnet (Braxton Singhanath)

The D Crew member who holds the key to the truth...  Zero (Jude Sincere)

Crew Boss, Mr. Sir (Marcus Kyd), explaining how things go down at Camp Green Lake.

The Warden (Susan Rome)

Stanley is called before the Warden for an infraction.

Stanley Yelnats IV (Zachary Corey)

From the alternate story-line: Kate (Emily Kester) and Sam the Onion seller (Jonathan Del Palmer) attempt to make their escape across Green Lake.

The boys after Zero runs away!

Zero and Stanley on the lamb together.

The treasure is found and the gig's up!  All that has been wrong for over 100 years, will be made right.

Baltimore Museum of Art: Australia and Oceania

 I don't care what museum you visit in the United States, I can say with some certainty that you will rarely be able to find any works of art reflective of the historical or cultural regions of Australia, Papau-New Guinea, New Zealand or any of the multitudinous island cultures across the Pacific Ocean (Oceania).  It's taken half a century just to elevate the art of Latin America, Native Americans and Africa.  Asia is the closest thing we have to an exception, and even then we're talking about the cultures of eastern Asia: Japan, China and Korea.  

We've been taught both explicitly, but more insidiously--implicitly--that non-European Art is not really Art.  It's craft.  It's decorative.  It can be pretty, but it's not the Mona Lisa.  And this is a damnable lie.  Because it doesn't need to be the Mona Lisa to be just as powerful, as mysterious, as deserving of veneration.  Like all art, Art is the expression of the human mind and heart to capture from this world a thing that transcends this world.

When you enter the ground floor of the BMA from the Annex (Main) entrance, the corridor to the right of the help desk leads you to an area where galleries of dedicated to the art of these lesser included folks.  The Asian Galleries features works from the aforementioned trio as well as South Central Asian nations like India, Iraq and Iran.  There are two areas of African art which have over the years morphed to include both 19th century traditional works along side of contemporary works.  But the first gallery contains works obtained from Australia and Oceania.  It's a humble offering, but honestly, outside of the Seattle Art Museum, one of the few attempts at displaying works from this region I've encountered.

LEFT

"Post in the Form of a Male Figure with a Fish and a Bird," Early 20th Century

Anonymous Artist, New Ireland Province, Papua-New Guinea

RIGHT

"Chief's Ceremonial Walking Stick," 20th Century

Anonymous Maori Artist, New Zealand

DETAIL:  "Maori Chief's Ceremonial Walking Stick"

"Chief's Funerary Figure (Uli)," 19th Century

Anonymous Mandak Artist, Latengai Island, Papua-New Guinea

"Breastplate (Civa Vonovono)," circa 1820-1850

Anonymous Tongan Artist, Fiji

"Storyboard Depicting Ademei And The Crocodile," 1950-1955

Ngiraibuuch Skedong, 1917 - circa 1989

Palau

Reflection:  The moment I saw this, I was struck by the crazy cartoonish nature of the images.  They felt like caricatures of enslaved African Americans.  The entire image was both other and oddly familiar.  Then I read the backstory.  Objects like this were created to memorialize major events in the life of a community and were displayed at structures you could call community centers.  The creation of these structures ended with the westernization of island culture, though existing community centers with their storyboards remained as they fell into disrepair and were abandoned.  Skedong revived this artform; however, he also incorporated aspects derived from his love of American Comic Books.   

Baltimore Museum of Art: Random Faves

 And six to grow on!  Some random discoveries, some beloved old friends.

"Moonlight On The Canal," 1856

Johan Barthold Jongkind, 1819 - 1891

"The Nineteenth Century," 1868

Frank Blackwell Mayer, 1810 - 1874

"Fields and Woods in Spring," 1894

Hugh Bolton Jones, 1848 - 1927

"Old City, I," 1912

Egon Schiele, 1890 - 1918

"The Drapery Maker," 1948

Haywood Bill Rivers, 1922 - 2001

"Artist In Greenland," 1935-1960

Rockwell Kent, 1882 - 1971

DETAIL: "Artist In Greenland"

Baltimore Museum of Art: The George A. Lucas Collection

 In an octagonal room just off of the central atrium toward the modern annex entrance, the Baltimore Museum of Art had installed a handful of works from the George A. Lucas Collection.  Lucas was an art dealer with ties to Baltimore who lived in Paris working as a broker of art for American clients.  Born in 1824, he spent most of the last half of the 19th century there, before returning to the United States and dying here in 1909.  The entirety of his collection came as a gift to the BMA in 1996 and included over 2,000 works!  This gallery contained 9 or 10.  Here are 4.

"Afterglow On The Banks Of The Nile," circa 1840-1848

Jean-Adrien Guignet, 1816 - 1854

DETAIL: "Afterglow On The Banks Of The Nile"

"Little Girl," circa 1850

Alfred Dehodencq, 1822 - 1882

"Portrait Of Joseph," circa 1850

Edouard Armand-Dumaresq, 1826 - 1895

"April Showers On Sunday Morning," circa 1880

Armand Charnay, 1844 - 1916

Baltimore Museum of Art: The Presence of Women

Having previously mentioned the concerted effort of the Baltimore Museum of Art to share a diverse and representative selection of works, allow me to share 5 paintings by women whose talents I would never have been aware of save for this egalitarian approach to ART.  The works span a life--70 years from 1884 to 1954.

"The New Model," circa 1884

Rosalie Lorraine Gill, 1867 - 1898

AMERICAN

We are in the intimate studio of William Merritt Chase, one of the most prolific, celebrated and sought after American impressionist artists of his era.  He not only painted, he also taught painting for many years at a school he initially christened the Chase School, but that when on to become the Parsons School of Design today.  He hobnobbed with some of the most successful artists of the turn of 20th Century, and among the thousands of his students over the years was one, Georgia O'Keeffe.  Somewhere in the milieu, Rosalie Loraine Gill showed up.  

She began her studies at age 12.  She went on to great success both in the United States where she exhibited at the The National Academy of Design and The Society of American Artists in 1884, AND at the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893.  By the early 1880's, she'd established a residence in Paris where she also found success with paintings shown in the Paris Salon in 1888, and the next year at the Exhibition Universelle in Paris.  

She split her time between New York, Paris and Baltimore where she'd established gallery agents.  In 1897 she married Rene Lara receiving the honorific "Countess of Chabau".  Less than four months later, on January 26, 1989, she died of unknown causes, and she was buried the next day

In consideration of the subject matter of the painting, it is an intriguing passing of the torch.  

"Theater Posters, Ikao, Japan," 1900

Lilla Cabot Perry, 1848 - 1933

AMERICAN

Full disclosure, I once had the tremendous honor of co-teaching an adult Bible Study with a distant cousin of Lydia "Lilla" Cabot Perry.  She knew her as a child.  Lilla was born into a Boston Brahman heritage and benefitted widely from the connections such a start in life offers.  She grew up knowing the company of Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Russell Lowell--the later of which was a relative on her mother's side. 

Never in want of money, the death of her father opened up even more unfettered opportunities including studying in Paris where she developed a close friendship with Camille Pissarro.  Her career took her again and again to France, back to Japan and in the most exclusive circles in the United States.  At the time of her death, in 1933, she'd participated in nine prestigious exhibitions beginning with the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition.

"Peonies," circa 1918

Margrethe Jensen, 1876 - 1926

NORWEGIAN

Her death at 50 shocked the local art community of Oslo, of which, she had played an ever important roll in since her latter 30's.  Trained in the most prestigious art school of the era in Oslo, she eventually did what so many in her generation did.  She eloped to Paris in the late days of the 19th century.  What she did in Paris, with whom and to what outcome remain lost to history.  What we do know is that she returned to Oslo around the time of the start of the First World War.  

Among her contemporaries, Edvard Munch was probably the closest and most recognizable.  Though considered a prolific painter, "Peonies" is the only work by Jensen that is on display in a major museum of art.  At the Baltimore Museum of Art, the work is part of the seminal Cohen Collection.

"Michael Greenwood At Pett Rectory," 1950

Sylvia Sleigh, 1916 - 2010

WELSH-AMERICAN

After being born in Wales, she grew up to attend formal art training in London.  There she met her first husband, fellow artists, Michael Greenwood.  This painting is an example of her budding overt feminist approach to art.  By posing him on a couch in an "odalisque" manner.  The more she evolved, the more she expressed her reason d'etre in placing men in vulnerable and submissive poses.  This peaked in the 1970's-80's with a series of works derivative of classic compositions where nude women were replaced by nude men.

Her activism blossomed into support of many women's art collectives, and culminated in her own collecting of artworks created by women.  From philanthropy to patronage, Sleigh dedicated both her life and resources to elevating women in the arts.

"Neighbor's Pride," 1954

Helen Louise Beccard, 1903 - 1994
AMERICAN

Assignment:  I've told you about four amazing female artists nearly lost to history.  Discover this one on your own!  Do the Google thing if you care.  Tell me what you find and what resonates with you.

Walter's Art Museum: Ancient Art: Egyptian, Middle Eastern, Greek and Roman

 From Medieval Art to Ancient Art at Baltimore's Walter Art Museum.  This sampling barely scratches the surface.  I show you one icon, they have 50+ on display.  One Amphora, they have 30...  You get the picture.  Enjoy!

We begin with Ancient Egypt.

WALL PAINTING OF A PRIESTESS HOLDING A SISTRUM

Egyptian, 19th - 20th Dynasty, circa 1290-1070 BCE

SISTRUM

Egyptian Late Period, circa 712-332 BCE

GODS BEARING GIFTS

Egyptian, 30th Dynasty, circa 360-313 BCE

ISIS NURSING HORUS

Egyptian, Late Period 26th Dynasty, circa 664-525 BCE

[LEFT] ISIS SEATED

Egyptian, Late Period 25th-26th Dynasties, circa 712-550 BCE

[MIDDLE] OSIRIS ON A THRONE

Egyptian, Late Period 26th Dynasty, circa 664-525 BCE

[RIGHT] HORUS THE CHILD

Egyptian, Late Period 26th-30th Dynasties, circa 664-343 BCE

BABOON MUMMY COFFIN

Egyptian, Late Period 30th Dynasty, circa 380-12 BCE

SET OF FOUR CANOPIC JARS

Egyptian, Third Intermediate Period, 21st-24th Dynasties, circa 1070-712 BCE

HEDGEHOG-SHAPED COSMETIC VESSEL

Egyptian, Late Period circa 6th-5th Centuries BCE

CAT

Egyptian, Late Period 26th Century, circa 700-100 BCE

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN ART

GOAT

Northern Syrian, circa 10th-9th Centuries BCE

RELIEF WITH A WINGED GENIUS

Neo-Assyrian, circa 883-359 BCE

Display with varied examples of the primacy of the writing in the cultures.

SUMERIAN TEMPLE HYMN

Babylonian, circa 1800-1600 BCE

PAIR OF DEITIES

Hittite, circa 1400-1200 BCE

GREEK AND ROMAN ART

FEMALE FIGURE

Cycladic, circa 2500-2400 BCE

ACROBAT PERFORMING A HANDSTAND

Egyptian, Late circa 4th-1st Century

RED-FIGURE VOLUTE KRATER

South Italian, circa 340-330 BCE

[DETAIL]

HANDLE IN THE FORM OF A PANTHER

Etruscan, 5th Century BCE

TORSO OF AN EMPEROR IN ARMOR

Roman, circa AD 14-68

ZEUS LABRAUNDOS

Roman, AD 1st Century

[DETAIL]

PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN

Roman, circa AD 100

PORTRAIT OF A MAN

Roman, AD Late 1st Century

Roman Sarcophagi: Ancient Funeral Home Sales Office?

SUCELLAS

Roman, circa AD 1st-2nd Century

FLOOR MOSAIC FISH

Roman, circa AD 2nd-3rd Century